4: "Businessman Pawley" Named U.S. Ambassador to Peru and Brazil

Upon the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945, Harry S. Truman ascended to the presidency. In June, he appointed William Douglas Pawley as Ambassador to the South American nation of Peru. Pawley stated that he was chosen because of his decades of familiarity with Latin America, fluency with the Spanish language and because the U.S. “had a very serious problem” with Peru’s unpaid debt of $150 million. A mutually beneficial resolution to the debt problem was desired because Peru was the first Latin American country to side with the U.S. in World War II.1

On November 13th, the State Department’s Fred Lyon telephonically informed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that Pawley was in Washington, DC and eager to meet with Hoover before the end of the week. The FBI Director received a memorandum detailing facts about William Douglas Pawley—his marital status; the armed services status of Pawley’s two sons; the location of Pawley’s 6700-square-foot-mansion on Pine Tree Drive in Miami Beach; his friendship with President Truman; and Pawley’s appreciation of the FBI’s August security survey of the Embassy in Lima. Hoover also was advised of the wealthy businessman’s history in Cuba, China and Florida; the fact that he has a private plane and yacht in Lima; and that Pawley “has expressed great respect for the FBI and the Director.” The memo also listed FBI personnel assigned to Peru (all nine names were redacted at the time of declassification) and the Legal Attaché, C.E. McNabb, who at the time was under recall as part of a staff reduction program.2

Internally, Peru’s years of border fights with nearby nations—Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile—had led to the development of a leadership of elites and military who were opposed by the center-left, anti-imperialist American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA). 

Read more »

6: Men and Women of Letters

On a diplomatic level, General Marshall agreed to use Pawley for short missions such as “negotiations to secure military installations, particularly bomber bases, in Spain.”1 There also is considerable evidence in The Pawley Collection at The George C. Marshall Library in Lexington, Virginia, that Marshall came to treat Pawley as a friend and corresponded often with Pawley and his wife, Edna, until Marshall’s death a decade later.

A September 4, 1947 telegram was sent from Washington addressed “Personal for Ambassador Pawley from General Marshall” which stated that “Katherine and I repeat again our heartfelt appreciation for the bountiful hospitality of your Edna and you and of your untiring efforts in our behalf.” Marshall asked Pawley to “make my compliments to the President and Mrs. Truman and to Margaret” and noted President Truman “is famous this morning as a mountain climber and orchid fancier meanwhile I have Lovett waiting at my side with the multitudinous details of a sick world.” Lovett signed the telegram.2

Read more »